Mueller will not indict Trump...

"Was that a Russian I  just saw over there?"

"They (the special counsel's office) acknowledge the fact that they can't indict us," Giuliani told NBC News on Wednesday, indicating that the information had been conveyed to Trump's lawyers. "They know they don't have that power. So their function is to write a report. We would like it to be the fairest report possible. But even if it isn't, we're prepared to rebut it in great detail, so we'd like them to do it."

So this is sort of the double edge sword here. If you are defender of Robert Mueller, you are likely making the argument that he is a straight shooter, someone who works by the book, and someone with the integrity that we should all respect.

But if that is the case, then Robert Mueller actually has to follow the rules. You cannot argue that he is by the book, while simultaneously arguing that he should ignore the Justice department and special counsel guidelines.

This means that Robert Mueller cannot indict a sitting President. This also means that whatever report he writes will be a non-public report written to the Department of Justice. The rules govern that it is not up to him to hold a James Comey style press conference to divulge his findings and recommendations, unless specifically told to do so by the acting Attorney General. He certainly would not be writing a book, or doing the media circuit, such as what we see James Comey doing.

There is no actual law that even suggests that any of his findings would be required to be released (although nearly everyone expects that they will be).  By the laws of Special Counsel, any report release or press conferences or public statement and pretty much everything else falls under the authority of the Justice Department. Unless of course he wrote everything else down in his own private diary, which by Comey precedent would allow him to divulge any of his actions as special counsel as personal recollection.

Btw: A little birdy told me that the plan is to let Mueller finish his probe, fire Ron Rosenstein, then have the new acting Attorney General release a highly "redacted" report, in typical modern day DOJ fashion, all while putting a virtual gag order on Mueller. Then have the new acting AG declare that the DOJ will not be extorted if asked for the full unredacted version!

May we live in interesting times!